A Greater Victoria couple who ran clandestine drug labs in North Saanich
and Shawnigan Lake has pleaded guilty to producing and selling anabolic
steroids.Steroids Supplier
“Your conduct was outrageous and it was dangerous,” Justice Geoff Gaul
said as he sentenced Meagan Breanna Blake and her partner Christopher
Hyland in B.C. Supreme Court.
You were chefs cooking up a serious cocktail of dangerous substances in a
relatively sophisticated laboratory operation,” Gaul said.
“You then marketed these substances under a fictitious name using
professional looking labels for profit. … Some, if not most, of those
who purchased these substances from you had no idea whatsoever that
Serivek Pharmaceuticals was a clandestine laboratory operation being run
by two young adults.”
At the sentencing hearing last week, federal prosecutor Baljiner Girn
told the court that Sidney-North Saanich RCMP started investigating a
drug lab in an outbuilding rented by Blake on Quatsino Drive in North
Saanich in December 2015.
They discovered that Canadian Border Service Agency agents had
intercepted packages addressed to C. Hyland from Hong Kong containing
anabolic steroids, Viagra, Cialis, Tamoxifen and GBL, which can be used
to make the “date rape drug” GBH, according to a lengthy agreed
statement of facts.
On March 10, 2016, armed with a general warrant, officers secretly
entered the outbuilding and found two pill presses and an industrial
powder mixer. The officers found labels with the name “Serivek
Pharmaceuticals” and several pages of handwritten notes showing
calculations of pills, and pill bottles, the statement said.
The officers took liquid and powder samples, which were analyzed by
Health Canada and found to be GHB, three forms of anabolic steroids,
Cialis, Viagra and Tamoxifen.
On May 26, officers again entered the lab and took samples of what
turned out to be GBL, Letrozole (a cancer drug), and an anabolic
steroid.
When officers made a third covert entry into the building on June 28, the lab was gone.
The next day, police saw Hyland leave a home on Ravenhill Drive in
Shawnigan Lake with a large jerry can, which he placed near a car owned
by another man, James Rempel. Hyland, Rempel and Blake got in the car.
Soon after, they were arrested by the Saanich police street crime section.
Officers found two 25-litre jerry cans filled with GHB and two water
bottles of GBL. There was also a pH test kit in a bin on the back seat.
Police searched the Ravenhill home and found a lab, two pill presses and
pills. An industrial power mixer was in the garage near canisters of
raw anabolic steroids.
They also found vials of liquid anabolic steroids labelled Serivek
Pharmaceuticals, three jugs of GBL and three kilograms of Viagra. In the
kitchen, police found a large cooking pot with remnants of GHB.
According to the agreed statement of facts, the total volume of GBL seized was 75 litres.
“This volume of GBL converted to GHB would result in the production of
622 litres of GHB or 124,500 individual doses,” Girn told the court.
The street value would be more than $600,000, she said.
The total approximate value of the anabolic steroids and pharmaceuticals was $45,248.
Blake, 28, a former University of Victoria biology student, pleaded
guilty to three counts of producing various anabolic steroids and three
counts of possession of anabolic steroids for the purpose of
trafficking.
Gaul accepted a joint submission and handed Blake an 18-month
conditional jail sentence, 100 hours of community service and a $10,000
fine.
